We Let the Rain Come
What choice but to stretch out arms
or furl, a sensitive plant
sorry for itself. The meticulous sky
tracking the weather report
lets down an acidulous milk.
Salix caprea Pendula tree
is our umbrella, weeping wussy
with moony tears. It’s a weary day.
The six-foot mound swells
beneath the rain while starlings call.
Oh, you believed in a vegetal sympathy
at once bashful and cloying
with three views of the mountain split
a triptych glazed, inscrutable
birthing these tiny white stones
even as we tumbled achingly.
Extraordinary, the placid string of blanks
into which we insert her given name
with its pegged consonants, tapering vowels.
Within, there’s space for tendrilled grief;
below, the veiny earth full colonized.
My brother, here is no place for us
so let’s account ourselves fortunate
to trudge back through the plots
unknowing where we will lie.